2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:54 am

So, which tomato varieties are you growing this year?

I've managed to accumulate more tomato variety seeds than I can make a reasoned choice, so I put a check mark next to all the varieties for which I have heard great glowing praises and recommendations, then printed out the entire list, cut them into paper strips of names with my two DD's help, and then we picked 75 check marked ones out of a box.

I'm going to try to limit down to 50 or less varieties to be able to plant more numbers of some of the varieties if I can, but here is the first cut. As you can see, it's very difficult to choose.... We may have to pick "out of a hat" again

UPDATE: Re-organized the list -- some added ( ) some removed. Feels a bit more manageable now, though I may *try* to shave a few more off the main list.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:40 am

I don't even try to keep up any more. Each Season I buy several packs of new seeds and then just dump them into community category packs which include seeds from previous seasons. We have community packs called: black, determinate, big hybrid, Roma, cherry/grape, large salad, yellow, green, extra disease resistant. At planting time a few seeds are taken from each pack, but the exact varieties are totally random. I've never harvested a summer grown tomato that we didn't like.

Last edited by hendi_alex on Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Eclectic gardening style, drawing from 45 years of interest and experience. Mostly plant in raised beds and containers primarily using intensive gardening techniques.Alex

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:09 am

Yep -- I remember. The trouble with that method is you can't tell others which variety it is either. I guess you CAN share by giving away the seeds from a fruit IF you take the extra trouble to save them separately, but you won't know its variety name and you don't know which specific seedling you are growing....

Also, if there is an outcross in your garden, deviating from the original, you won't know that either and won't be able to identify the "new" variety that has been created.

I kind of can't help but to feel like relegating the varieties to anonymity is a disservice to the folks who have grown and selected for specific characteristics over a number of years to develop specific varieties, ya know?

...but it would certainly alleviate the pre-season anxiety

Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:49 am

Great list. I only recognize a few. I look forward to your report on how they did and taste. I only have space for three at a time and maybe two to three cyles a year. 9 tomatoes tops. But that is o.k., the ones I really like, I keep planting again. The ones I don't, I will give it one more try, to make sure it wasn't something I did then never again if it is the same.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Alex! I can just imagine that "devil may care" moment . . . or, is it that "devil take the hindmost" moment?

I can't quite do it, I am sure. Although, there was that season when I was trying "tree tags" on bamboo stakes and after that windstorm . . . a confusion all, umm, cycle out there in the tomato patch!

Here is a way that I could really feel okay, start to finish: grow only the ones that would feel like old friends. I could lose all the tags and still, things would likely turn out just fine. I could even go with Alex's approach and just not toss a single sprout! Nothing new, nothing I wasn't already familiar with! Me and my friends .

Applestar, provenance would make a good deal of difference if I had a whole bevy of choices to make. The more I imagined I knew, the better. That and a catchy name!

Steve

A conclusion is simply the place where a person got tired of thinking.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:19 pm

Im growing all dwarfs red robin , hahms gelbe , window box roma , bushy chabrovsky , sweet pea currant (this is a new one for me ) so I don't know how the sweet pea will work I hope good also growing tumbling tom yellow and red and garden pearl ...pray that all of these grow . thanks .

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:59 pm

Planting individual names just got too cumbersome. After all, gotta have 3-5 of each variety, just to make sure each survives and gives enough production. Then have to try out 4-5 new varieties each year. Ends up being at least 25-30 varieties. Times 5, that is as many as 150 plants! Problem is, we have trouble handling more than about 40 plants. By planting categories, it is pretty east to hold things down to 40-50 plants overall.

Eclectic gardening style, drawing from 45 years of interest and experience. Mostly plant in raised beds and containers primarily using intensive gardening techniques.Alex

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:27 pm

It is impossible for me not to know what is being planted, how many tomatoes each plant produces, how much each fruit weighs, etc. etc. I even have yearly journals dating back the 15 years I have been growing OP/heirloom tomatoes with all that information. When growing hybrids the 25 years before that, I didn't care what happened. Call me an anal tomato snob but so be it. Here is my list for this year. I am growing out all the oldest seeds in my collection to either refresh or retire varieties.

*The new-to-me varieties, however, I have several experimental crosses, both intended & unintended, that will be in the garden. Hopefully, they are on their way to stabilizing.

So, that is 29 "named" varieties and several "experimentals." Not all of these are likely to be in my garden. I give plants to 3 neighbors. Between them, they get more than twice what I have. I'm always in their gardens and can keep track of anything I can't fit into my 60-plant tomato patch. They tend to get the new-to-me varieties for the trial runs. he he . . .

Steve

A conclusion is simply the place where a person got tired of thinking.

*[having trouble getting these 3 varieties to sprout. they come up, barely; are sickly thin and white, then fall over, and shrivel up. a second try is on the heat mat now. if they fail again, they're off the list for this year.]

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

I tried Isis candy a couple of times. It is supposed to be sweet. It may do better in your climate. They did not seem to like hot and humid. Too much disease.

I usually grow one cherry and two slicers.

right now I have terenzo tomato. It is a dwarf and an AAS winner. It is disease resistant. It has tomatoes now, just waiting to see what they taste like. That is if the rain doesn't kill it.

The second tomato is a next generation tomato that came out of sungold. It is not as sweet but it doesn't crack either. And it is not bitter when it is green. That is a keeper for me. It also decided it did not need the pot anymore and is just growing wild on my path. The third container right now has snow peas growing in it and a couple of tendergreen cucumbers. I haven't decided what to put in that one yet.

I want to add more in, but need to carefully plan these, I also lots of different 2013 saved seeds from mystery heirlooms and OP crosses I have been growing and saving seeds from off and on for a long time, many generations. Some are getting really good and interesting Sadly the best ones were really late and didn't produce much fruit before earlier frost than in years hit. they may not be big producers anyhow. Also may go back to more of the older saved seeds from 2007 and the like. But last year I had some really tasty dark purples and blacks and dark greens and stripeys and multi-colored flesh and stuff I want to grow out from these this year.

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MOST OF THESE ARE NEW TO ME!I have, in the past mostly had only mystery heirlooms which were passed to me by friends (either as seed or tomato), or saved by me from store/market-bought heirlooms, or I did big name hybrids or other Burpee seeds, which never pleased me too much. Unfortunately I no longer have seeds or saved seeds of the offspring from my earliest gardening exploits in the mid-late 90s. My earliest ones go back to ten years later, 2007.

Last edited by MB3 on Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:23 am, edited 2 times in total.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:02 am

Last year, I started the very late maturing varieties a week to 10 days earlier than the main group. They got so big I had to uppot into bottom of 20-24 oz soda cups and plastic bottles, and take them in and out every day, and they were mostly blooming and set fruits by the time they were planted -- but they definitely produced earlier.

Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.

Re: 2014 tomato garden -- what varieties are you growing?

Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:18 am

as I said, I need to trim my list down for the next round of cell drops. I am sure some more will get added, but mostly it needs trimmed.I probably should keep it to no more than 12 more varieties, but impulse control will be tough when I have so many new ones to try out. my space is limited, so I think many of the next set of drops should be dwarfs for either garden or bucket.

either way, I see my parents and other people inheriting lots of seedlings, especially if some varieties have really good germination rates on what I drop. I can't do loads of each variety, most not more than one plant.